Now, though, I am both disgusted by and embarrassed for Komen. To defund was ridiculous. To reinstate, with bullshit explanations, was the right call but poorly done. The statement Komen released effectively says ‘god, guys, fine. We didn’t do anything wrong, but if you’re going to get all sensitive about it we’ll take it back. For now, anyway.’

I have a pink stand mixer. And pink license plates. I acknowledge that I bought them more because I was going through a pink phase and liked that I could justifty pinkness with some social cred. I’ve since learned that the marketing surrounding pink is actually not particularly helpful when it comes to altering people’s behavior with regard to breast cancer. In other words, perhaps more people bought pink stuff because they were like me when I bought my mixer. I don’t do regular breast exams (yes, I am aware that I should). I don’t walk or run for ‘the cure’. I don’t talk to my friends about their risk factors for breast cancer. I do have a pink mixer and pink license plates, and honestly? I’m not even sure that there was a charitable donation associated with those purchases. I think there was, but I would, wouldn’t I?

Komen’s foundation didn’t make their decision with the highest emphasis on the health of women, but neither did I when I brought pink things into my life.

I am holding them to a higher standard than I hold myself, and that makes me feel bad – but then I remember that I’m not a charity and I feel better.

I just want good things to happen for women, and I want the organizations that purport to be for women to want the same thing.

Maybe I’ll start buying red stuff instead.

I am writing words now, so technically, yes, it does seem to be true, but the true test will come momentarily when I return to the thing I actually need to be writing.

The thing that I need to be writing has the potential to be sort of a big deal (to me) and I’m not quite ready to talk about it yet, but it’s taking up all of my time.

Oh, also? I applied for a professor job at a community college today. That I am willing to talk about, but I find myself with very little to say. I filled out an application, wrote a page about why I’d be good at the job, a page about my teaching philosophy, and then submitted the whole shebang along with my resume and transcript. It was very exciting – but it’s possible that I’m letting Community cloud my judgement. Anyway, even if Jeff Winger doesn’t show up, I think it’s a job I would both enjoy and perform well.

That is if psychic detective is completely off the table.

P.S. Our toilet is bound and determined to run, and it’s going to drive me fucking insane. In my townhouse the toilet ran but a) you could fix it by jiggling the handle and b) I always blamed it on the ghost that lived there with me, so it never really affected my life. This? This is either my fault, Crockett’s fault, or no one’s fault, and when one is faced with a running toilet, one does not simply blame no one. And the handle jiggle is completely useless. It’s very irritating.

(Don’t worry, this picture was taken today and they’re both fine. This story does not have a sad ending.)

In late October, Cloey started shaking her head and scratching her ear. I bought some stuff to clean her ear out, but a) she hated it and b) it completely failed to help in any way.

We went to the vet.

The vet said she had an ear infection and gave me antibiotics and an in-ear steroidal cream.

He charged me half my Christmas budget, but Clo is my girl and these are the risks you take when you have pets.

Two weeks later, her infection came back.

“Oh. It appears that while we were killing the bacteria, yeast was taking over.”

I left with more antibiotics, anti-fungals, and a steroid pill because her ear was too swollen for the cream. And less money. Also? A lecture about how I should be taking care of my ten year old dog. Spoiler alert: that lecture revolved around an $800 blood and fluid workup that would ‘help us identify any future problem areas’.

I got in the car and cried on the way home from that visit. I love my dog, and when I brought her into my life as a teeny tiny puppy almost ten years ago, I effectively promised her that I would always take care of her. When she and I lived in Nederland, we had a great vet. He understood preventative care, but he also believed in prudence. The new vet, In Louisville, made me feel like I needed to go into debt just to test my girl for possible issues even though ear infection aside, she’s FINE.

Her ear infection came back. We switched vets.

The new vet told me that I should have been cleaning her ear since the second infection, that the prior vet had instructed application of the steroid cream incorrectly, and that the tests he’d recommended were simultaneously mostly unnecessary and wildly overpriced. I swear I almost hugged her. Then I gave mer a bunch of my money and took home yet another steroid cream and an acidic ear cleaning solution.

Cloey’s fine now.

Then my other dog, Maida, ate some chocolate. I thought both girls ate it, and it was a small amount, but after a few hours it became clear that Maida had eaten it alone.

By ‘it became clear’ I mean ‘Maida climbed into her toy box and started heaving her toys out at the wall, one by one, at fastball speed, and then spent several hours running up to my face and doing a dance’. It wore off.

She’s fine now.

I just want them to be healthy. I know they’re happy, but when they don’t feel good, there’s very little that I as a human can communicate to them. I can show them I love them, but I can’t say ‘hey, perhaps you shouldn’t eat everything you can find’ or ‘sweetpea, I know your ear hurts and I’m doing everything I can to fix it’.

Also? Sometimes I want them to find somewhere else to sit.

It’s hard being one of my dogs.

Obviously.

Anyway, last year of forever or not (probably not), I’m not making any resolutions this year. I want to resolve to be a better blogger, and to resolve to finish my book, and resolve to not take things at school so personally. I want to resolve to exercise every day, because it is an important a commitment as finishing my homework – for both my physical and mental health. I want to resolve to figure out what makes Cloey puke on the couch and stop her from doing it.

I’m not going to officially resolve any of those things, though, because I have no particular dedication to resolutions and I’m just as likely to do them just by virtue of wanting to do them. Which is to say, slim-to-moderately likely.

I guess we’ll see.

Also up in 2012 – graduation! A job, probably! My 31st birthday in two weeks!

What’s new for you?

After some brief consideration, I decided I loved it – and they were so-so and displeased with it, respectively.

There are three possible reasons that I loved it.

First, that it was written by Diablo Cody and she’s a fucking genius. She writes dialogue that is simultaneously realistic and aspirational – she writes the things my best, smartest friend would say if she could see a few statements into the future in order to intelligently plan witty repartee.

Second, it was directed by Jason Reitman. His movies are my favorite movies with which to flog myself. (I HATED Up in the Air. FUCKING HATED IT. And then rented it not once but twice. Hated it every time. Keep going back. I have issues.)

Third, I’m gradually becoming a misanthrope and the movie has nothing to say about the redeeming values of humanity. Charlize Theron, in particular, supported the worldview that people are selfish and life is sort of generally crappy for everyone all the time. I like that, because that’s the kind of view that I’m learning in grad school. Thanks, school!

So there you go – if you like Diablo Cody or Jason Reitman or kind of hate everyone, this is the holiday week movie for you.

Not daydreams of walking through Parisian streets – actual dreams in which I’m part of some group that has a trip planned.

In these dreams, I never even make it on the plane, much less all the way to Europe.

In last night’s version, I packed a bag but forgot pants, and then followed a GPS thing to the airport and ended up in Colorado Springs – more than 100 miles from DIA.

Sometimes I arrive at the airport and can’t find a place to park. Sometimes the airport is a maze.

Sometimes, I have an out of body experience where I watch everyone else milling around the gate, getting on the plane (which is always luxurious), and generally not caring where I am.

I can’t imagine what these dreams might mean.

Maybe I should just go to Paris.

Everything ever from AskMen.com is one of those things.

Why, oh why, do their articles always start with something that ‘real men’ do or do not do?

In question today is a detestable list of drinks that real men do not order. (Don’t feel like you have to click on it – I’m going to cover the high points.)

The number one reason that real men shouldn’t order certain drinks is, obviously, beccause they’re for ladies. And real men and ladies have absolutely nothing in common. Real men are ALL MAN – if they had any part lady, they’d be… fake men. (Right? I wish AskMen were here to explain this to me.)

The list actually doesn’t start with something that obviously is a lady trait – it begins with not ordering a drink you can’t pronounce. The implication being that real men never admit in public that they’re lacking any kind of knowledge. Why? Probably because that’s a sign of weakness. And you know who’s weak? The ladies. They can ask for ‘Lap-hrog’ all they want. Of course, they won’t. Because ladies don’t drink scotch.

Malibu and Diet Coke are also forbidden – because, “Diet Coke is a soda for weight-concious administrative assistants”. What’s that  you say? You’re male and weight conscious? Or male and an administrative assistant? Or you like diet coke? Half man. At best.

Off the list without explanation of why they’re unmanly – peach schnapps and anything that ends in -tini that doesn’t start with mar. In this case, I think the authors are criticizing the drinks themselves rather than a man who dares drink them, and that’s fine. Carry on.

But then. Thing you can never order No. 6 – ‘what she’s having’. The only exception is scotch on the rocks.

By her sheer ladyness, your lady has essentially estrogened all over whatever drink she ordered. Just by touching it, she has de-manlied it. Wine? Beer? A gin and tonic? Whatever it is, the taint of a woman enjoying it means you, you real man you, are no longer cleared for consumption.

No. 5? “Whatever you want.” The explanation? “This is a valid point, despite the fact that it goes against the entire thrust of this list.” I feel like they threw this in there just to ruin the momentum of my rage.

Back to off the list: Sex on the Beach (only appropriate for sorority girls, who are not people that we should respect, obviously), anything that comes in a bottle that isn’t beer (hard lemonade is for men who don’t know how to wield a martini shaker or, you know, women), and a Cosmopolitan (knew that was coming).

Why no Cosmos? They “go down too easy for comfort”.

Let’s look at what we’ve learned. Real men:

• Either know everything or must pretend that they do.
• Are never overweight or can’t watch their calories in public places, if that’s something they do.
• Do not work as assistants in offices.
• Cannot order something that is already in the hand of a woman at his table.
• Are not in any way allowed to overlap in taste with sorority girls (I feel like AskMen probably allows for liking the girls themselves, though – just a hunch).
• Don’t drink things that don’t involve some kind of creation.
• Musn’t order things that are too enjoyable. Real men work for their buzz.

The corollary, here, is that doing any of these things means you’re either a lady or a fake man:

• Acknowledging a desire to try something that’s new to you.
• Being health conscious.
• Being employed as an admin.
• Drinking something you enjoy, regardless of who ordered it first, who the typical drinker is, or whether or not it came out of a bottle.

Why does a website exist whose purpose seems to be telling men that there are rules they must follow to maintain their status as men? Is it simply because there are so many for women?

How on earth are we ever going to get anywhere with these stupid, arbitrary lines drawn in the sand?

Hint: you are a male if that is your gender. You are a man if you identify as one.

Cosmo or no Cosmo.

• Grocery shop.
• Play Minesweeper.
• Listen to audio books.

Boom. Done. Everything else is either something I do an expected amount, or something I do an a larger than average amount but everyone totally knows (things that fall into that category – gossip when drinking, cook).

Grocery shopping – wev. Minesweeper? Awesome – I play it while I walk the dogs, while I’m in class (sometimes), occasionally while watching television – really any time that I need a little distraction.

Audio books, though? People, are you audio book people?

There are different ways to listen to audio books. My mom, for example, sits down and listens, while doing nothing else.

That’s the wrong way.

The right way is to listen to audio books while you’re doing other things. My personal favorites? Driving, walking, and working out.

Thing that sounds like a segueway but isn’t: yesterday, the hot water heater in my townhouse busted. The tank rusted through, and I had to go buy a new one and pay someone to install it. My reaction to that was… well, first it was to cry. My more measured reaction was to spend some time with Mint.com, assessing my expenditures and looking for places to cut a few corners.

Mint informed for that for the last 32 months, I have spent an average of $30 a month on audio books. (I use Audible.com). With average Audible pricing, which is much more affordable than buying books on CD, that works out to about 2.3 books per month. I rarely invest in a book that’s shorter than 15 hours, because I blow through them so fast.

All this math means that I pay for (and listen to) about 35 hours of audio books per month. Not to mention that I inevitably re-listen to something I already bought at least once a month, when I’m out of credits at Audible and have to wait until the 4th of the next month, when my new one comes. That brings my monthly listening total to ~ 50 hours.

That’s 1.6 hours a day.

I’m awake for about 16 hours a day.

I spend 10% of my time listening to books on tape.

Other than doing homework (and watching tv, which is what I do while watching homework), I cannot think of another thing that I spend 10% of my time doing.

When I saw the dollar signs on Mint, my thought was to cut back on my audio books – but here’s the thing. My books make driving to and from school tolerable. They make waiting for Cloey to fully explore the scents of some recently peed on bush interesting. They give me something to listen to at the gym other than the guy grunting on the pull up machine.

Music, of course, would do all this – but books are stories.

I’m officially setting aside $30 a month to support my habit. The cutbacks will have to come from elsewhere.

I mean, who needs haircuts?

Americans work a lot, and women spend four times as many minutes cooking and cleaning up food as men.

There’s a lot of new TV by and about girls. Sadly, very little of it is awesome. (I do like The New Girl, but Whitney is blah (although it did get picked up for a full season). Two Broke Girls is possibly the worst thing I’ve seen in the last five years.)

And if I needed a reason other than The New Girl to admire Zooey Deschanel (which I don’t, because she’s just so … SO), this quote would do it: The fact that people are associating being girlie with weakness – that needs to be examined.

TERRIBLE TEE SHIRTS: Too pretty for homework, allergic to algebra, and a so-terrifying ‘why I raped you’ shirt that I would refuse to link to if Topman hadn’t already pulled it.

“The [burglars] were foiled at their 30th intended home by a lion. Like an actual lion. Police have been unable to find said lion and have repeatedly questioned the girls about the probability that it was actually just a very large dog, not a lion. The girls insist it was a lion.”

The House Labor, Health, and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee drafted legislation (pdf) that would entirely defund Planned Parenthood (mentioned BY NAME), and withhold funding from Title X and NPR. Awesome plan, guys.

This well designed study concludes that people trust women less when they have no makeup on.

There you go. The current state of sometimes-it’s-hard-to-be-a-girl.